I’m now about three days into RDR2. I think I spend 90% of my time exploring rather than completeing main quests and as a result, I have only just made it to the second camp. Fast travel is an anathema to me and when I do go on a long journey it is normally at walk or trot (I tend to look after my horses! I have only lost one so far.)

Other than huntong for LEgendary animals anf fish, I spend most of my time treasure hunting and doing the little side quests. I know there are some more maps out there and there is one location I cannot find (although I have seen a screenshot of it by accident) I want to organically explore.

I’m not going to progress with the main story until I max out my beard! Currently just hit a length of 9!

The game is just a delight. I have been as honorable as possible. I might play through again as pure evil but I’m not sure that I could bring myhself to do it!

I'm playing honorably right now, but next playthrough (after I play RDR1 through again) I'm going full on outlaw!

Quote:

Originally Posted by crocoduck_hunter

I really enjoyed the game up until the final missions of Chapter 4.

At that point it went into a massive downward spiral and I quit in frustration.

I thought it was all pretty well done. The ending of Chapter 4 made sense considering what happened to Dutch. Chapter 5 and 6 were awesome, wrapping up Arthur's story.

Now that I'm in Epilogue 2 with John, I'm enjoying playing as him a lot more, and I'll be replaying RDR1 when I get finished!

I’m currently playing through the “Life is Strange” series. (I’m always a few years behind on video games.) The games constantly have you making difficult decisions, which for an indecisive person like me, makes them harder than any action games. There’s never a clear cut right choice, and you often get punished for trying to do the right thing. It like a video game adaptation of the Trolley Problem.

In first game in the series, you play as Max, an 18 year old photography student who discovers she has the power to reverse time. It’s a neat gimmick, and while I’ve seen it used in action games before, it’s cool to see it used in a story-driven game. Say something embarrassing? Rewind time and say something smarter. Someone reveals a secret you shouldn’t know? Rewind time so that you still know the secret, but they no longer know you know, you know?

People complained about the game’s use of outdated slang, but that’s never been an issue for me. I know plenty of people who use outdated slang in real life (myself included), and the game is set in a small town, which sometimes fall behind the rest of the world when it comes to fads. My only real complaint about the first game is the “video gamey” parts. I got so absorbed in the story, music, and scenery, that whenever a scene popped up that reminded me it was a video game (like this one part that has you finding five bottles in a junkyard), it broke the immersion.

Possible Spoilers…

The games pack a lot of emotional impact for me. One scene has you trying to talk a suicidal young woman down from a ledge. The conversation is affected by how much she trusts you, which is based on things you did earlier in the game. You’re temporarily without your time powers, so if you say the wrong thing, you can’t go back. Now, I’ve been playing video games for 40 years, I’ve fought giant dragons while standing on tiny ledges above lava, and I’ve beaten them with one hit point remaining. But I’ve never experienced a video game moment more stressful than trying to talk this student out of jumping off the roof. One wrong word, and I’ve basically killed someone. I was doing well, and I’d even managed to get her to take a couple of steps toward me, when I accidentally mentioned that her brothers would miss her if she was gone. She doesn’t have brothers. “See, you don’t know me at all, you’re just pretending to be my friend!” And she jumped. Maybe I get too much into these games, but it was like being punched in the stomach.

The fifth episode had a lot of annoying filler, including an overly long stealth sequence that could have been out of a Metal Gear game. The actual ending angered a lot of the game’s critics, because regardless of what other choices you make throughout the game, you get the same two choices at the end. Both endings have a way of making all your past decisions pointless. It’s like nothing you’ve done mattered, and I wasted my time agonizing over my choices. But I don’t care. Two endings is one more than some games get, and for me it was about the journey, not the destination.

The second game in the series is a prequel, “Life is Strange: Before the Storm”. This gives some backstory to Chloe, one of the main characters from the first one. This one doesn’t have time travel or anything obviously supernatural, and I honestly thought it was the better game for it. Unfortunately, being a prequel, you know how things are going to end up and therefore stakes feel lower. Still, it does have its harrowing moments.

It also has a lot of that “Solo: A Star Wars Story” fanservice, showing us unnecessary things like how Chloe got her truck, when she decided to dye her hair blue, when she first started using her most signature piece of slang, and even little things like how she got the bobblehead she keeps on her dashboard. It wasn’t enough to annoy me, but it was way more than needed.

Chloe can come across as kind of a jerk in both games, but she has enough tragedy in her past that you can see how she turned out that way. When a work has prequels, I usually advocate watching them in release order, because prequels often spoil twists that are better presented in the original work. In this case, however, I wish I had played them chronologically: First the “Bonus Episode” in Before the Storm, then Before the Storm Episodes 1-3, then the original Life is Strange. I don’t think it spoils anything important, and that order really helps you warm up to Chloe’s abrasiveness and shows you why she makes so many bad decisions.

Next we have “The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit”, which is a lead-in to Life is Strange 2. This is a short, free game, and you don’t need to have played any of the other games first. It’s about a little boy with a big imagination, who sees every household chore as an adventure. Sometimes you see the world through his eyes, and it reminds me of “Spaceman Spiff” from Calvin & Hobbes. Of course, it wouldn’t be a LiS game without a dark side, in this case the boy’s alcoholic father. It’s your choice whether to walk on eggshells around him, or to get on his last nerve. It takes about 2 hours to play, or less if you’re not as thorough as I am. I highly recommend it even if you’re not interested in trying any of the other LiS games.

Finally, I’ve played the first episode of Life is Strange 2. It has a new cast of characters, but takes place in the same universe as the other games. It’s about a pair of brothers who run away from home after a tragic incident. It has a strong racism theme, with the boys constantly being judged for being Hispanic. There’s even a reference to Trump’s wall. You control the older brother (16), but your actions influence your younger brother (9). So again, tough choices keep popping up. You’re both hungry and on the run… you can steal some food so you don’t starve, but will that teach your little brother that stealing is okay? It’s even more complicated because (mild spoiler) the younger brother has supernatural powers. So if you’re not a good influence, you could be creating a future supervillain.

I’m taking this game slower than the others because not all the episodes are out yet. Episode 2 came a few weeks ago, but there’s no ETA on episode 3 yet. Plus I hear Episode 2 has a few bugs in it, so I may just wait until they’ve had time to patch it.